James Joyce (1882-1941)

James Joyce was an Irish expatriate author of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake.

Although he spent most of his adult life outside Ireland, Joyce's psychological and fictional universe is firmly rooted in his native Dublin, the city which provides the settings and much of the subject matter for all his fiction. In particular, his tempestuous early relationship with the Irish Roman Catholic Church is reflected through a similar inner conflict in his recurrent alter ego Stephen Dedalus.

As the result of his minute attentiveness to a personal locale and his self-imposed exile and influence throughout Europe, James Joyce became one of the most regionally focused of all the English language writers of his time.